Shutdown slows arrival of pickers

Florida citrus and strawberry growers face crop losses in the early part of their 2012-13 season because the federal government shutdown delayed processing of agricultural guest workers.

Even with the government reopening, federal officials will be confronted with clearing thousands of guest-worker applications from Florida and across the nation under the H-2A program.

"For us, problems remain because of the backlog," said Mike Carlton of Lakeland, director of labor relations at the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association in Maitland. "It's essential they have a process to deal with this backlog in a very quick manner."

The H-2A program allows U.S. agricultural employers with a proven need for foreign workers, mostly to harvest crops, to bring in those workers under a temporary visa for one season.

The program is expensive because, in addition to a prevailing wage, employers must pay for transportation to and from the country of origin and for housing.

U.S. Sen Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, are pressing the federal Homeland Security, Labor and State departments to develop a fast-track process for clearing the H-2A backlog, Carlton said.

"We're dealing with perishable commodities," he said. "I'm relatively optimistic those agencies will work as hard as they can to create a program to move this along."

"Every day it gets more critical, and we estimate about 90 percent of the citrus applications are hung up in Chicago," said Andrew Meadows, a spokesman for Lakeland-based Florida Citrus Mutual, the state's largest growers' group.

Crucial time coming

Strawberry and citrus officials said demand for harvest workers will pick up in early December, when harvesting both crops begins in earnest.

Some harvesting of fresh citrus already has begun, but the fresh crops account for just 5 percent of the state's oranges and less than 40 percent of the grapefruit.

Processing at Florida's Natural Growers' plants will ramp up after Thanksgiving, when the oranges will mature enough for juice, said Dave Crumbly, a vice president at the Lake Wales-based growers' cooperative.

Without a fast-track application process, citrus and strawberry growers face a shortage of harvest labor in six weeks, Carlton and Meadows agreed. "If they get on it and don't nitpick these applications, we could salvage it," Meadows said.